GRASPING AT THE SMOKE OF 9/11

A brief photo essay with words and photographs by David Imbrogno_____________________________

A spontaneous memorial for 9/11 in New York City

Briefly on 9/11,
the world was one.
Even newspaper headlines
around the earth
proclaimed it.

But just as the flow of a river
cannot be captured in a bucket,
oneness, is equally as elusive.
Oneness is like smoke,
impossible to grasp.

The smoke of 9/11
brought us all together.
Then, it did what smoke does.
it dissipated.

The I-beam cross, part of the remains of the World Trade Center

The smoke of 9/11
may be dispersed
but it is not gone.

The smoke of 9/11
has rejoined the wind.
The wind
that carries the smoke
of every war,
The wind
that carries the smoke
of every joyful campfire.
The wind
that now carries the smoke
and the ashes
of 9/11.

Artful graffiti on the plywood walls around Ground Zero

The wind carries
the joys,
the sorrows,
and the longings,
of every breath,
that every person
has ever breathed
throughout all of time,
including
the 2,819
who died,
on that
deceptively beautiful
autumn day.

Photos of the missing and the dead lined the streets, all with the heading “Remember Me”

I will always be haunted
by the photographs of people
hanging from, jumping from,
and crawling around
the gaping holes in the buildings,
hundreds of stories high.

There are somethings once seen,
that cannot be unseen.

There are somethings once known,
that cannot be unknown.

A red cross marked an emergency aid station

Bob Dylan’s song chants one answer,
He sings that the answer is
“Blowin’ in the Wind.

As we breath,
the ever present wind
picks up our every breath
and merges it
with the breath of
everything
and everyone
who has ever lived.

In that way at least,
with every breath we take,
we will always be one.